Two-mode squeezed states as Schrödinger cat-like states

E. Oudot, P. Sekatski, F. Fröwis, N. Gisin, N. Sangouard
2015 Journal of the Optical Society of America. B, Optical physics  
In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the generation of superposition of coherent states with opposite phases, the so-called photonic Schrodinger-cat states. These experiments are very challenging and so far, cats involving small photon numbers only have been implemented. Here, we propose to consider two-mode squeezed states as examples of a Schrodinger-cat-like state. In particular, we are interested in several criteria aiming to identify quantum states that are macroscopic
more » ... uperpositions in a more general sense. We show how these criteria can be extended to continuous variable entangled states. We apply them to various squeezed states, argue that two-mode squeezed vacuum states belong to a class of general Schrodinger-cat states and compare the size of states obtained in several experiments. Our results not only promote two-mode squeezed states for exploring quantum effects at the macroscopic level but also provide direct measures to evaluate their usefulness for quantum metrology.
doi:10.1364/josab.32.002190 fatcat:o6e6xddwvzh5flddkdloaxtqpe